


Nature of Freaks

by Mangacat



Series: Freak Accidents [2]
Category: Supernatural, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-14
Updated: 2009-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-14 02:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2175273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangacat/pseuds/Mangacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam loses his brother again to... something. He isn't quite sure what's taken place, but the apocalypse is riding hard on their asses and he realizes that he might need his brother ... now, back, more than ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nature of Freaks

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is my contribution to the [August](http://community.livejournal.com/spn_pic_for_fic/5397.html) prompt of the [](http://spn-pic-for-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://spn-pic-for-fic.livejournal.com/)**spn_pic_for_fic** challenge from 2009. Yeah I know... shouldn't the mods do modding and not ficcing? Well, as there were so many commenters to 'Freak of Nature' asking for a sequel, soooo, yeah, I'm such a great big pushover. So, this isn't a sequel per say, it's a companion piece to the first one, but can be seen as a standalone... I hope it meets your expectations.  
> 

Sam came to in a heap of smoke and ashes. The walls around them stood as a scorched skeleton, the roof seared away to dust by the Light-bearer. Every breath filled his lungs with the undeniable stench of rage, bitterness, hunger making his skin crawl and his veins tingle  with anticipation. He didn't allow those thoughts, didn't behold anything but the body of his brother, felled beside him, skin dusted with the remnants of fire and brimstone, eyes closed and features unmoved by awareness. 

 

He coughed and scrambled to his hands and knees, leaning over the still form. The other man wouldn't wake up to the shaking and prodding, so Sam decided to take the unresponsive body in his arms and hightailed it out of there as fast as possible after securing the knife from another vacant human shell. He took them outside, stuffing his brother into the passenger seat of the Mustang and took off to the only destination he could think of. The seals broken, the chains burst; but no one knew exactly what came next. Except one, but he figured that going near that person was rather inadvisable in his current state. So he had only one direction left to go. 

 

Sam's mind was blank, a carefully cleared canvas that kept everything from breaking through and was the only way to keep functioning, to get anywhere with this. He drove like the hounds of Hell were on his heels, and who knew, maybe they wouldn't leave him wondering for long, though nothing looked out of place while he was driving through the countryside; like the world slept through its own end without noticing the ruler of Hell walking the earth. 

 

Moments seemed to blur together to an unidentifiable stretch of time and sheer will and determination kept him going forward on his way. Sam didn't know how much time had passed, but it didn't feel like enough, like something got skewered sideways, and he let the engine roar one last time through the metal archway. He didn't want to examine the journey too closely, it would just run his mind into issues that were better not addressed, so he pushed the door open before the car had come to a complete stop and slid over the hood in a graceful leap to get to the passenger side. There was still no sign of consciousness and Sam felt tendrils of fear crawl up the base of his spine, afraid that this was going to go wrong in so many more ways he hadn't thought possible. 

 

Carefully, he heaved his brother’s body out of the car and stumbled up the few steps to the ragged veranda, exhaustion suddenly hitting him out of the blue. The weight of his brother’s body that had seemed like nothing a moment before turned to lead in an instant and his legs that had been powerful and secure a second ago buckled under him without warning. His knees crashed into the creaking wood, but he managed to keep the man in his arms safe from too much jostling. Sam stayed kneeling, his brother tucked against his chest, his head drooping with fatigue and shame beyond comprehension. He missed the door opening, but not the cold steel of the rifle being pressed against his forehead. He didn't flinch, nor did he move, his eyes drifting shut as he waited for the trigger to be pulled. Sam caught the familiar whiff of gun powder and sweat, a scent that combined with the unique presence of Dean was more home to him than anything else on the world. He welcomed the old companions, cherished them for the last seconds of his life, but somehow deep in his very core, he knew there would be no reprieve this time, no absolution, no freedom from his choices and the duty that lay on his shoulders; just like it hadn't in what felt like only hours ago. He felt the cold bite of steel leave his skin, heard a shuffle of footsteps and a gruff voice:

 

“Get your ass moving and come on inside, you idjit.”

 

Bobby shuffled around in the kitchen after he pointed Sam to the living room, where he watched the boy put the unconscious form of his brother down onto the couch. He didn't miss Sam skirting around the clear lines of the key painted on the ceiling, practically melting into wall by the door. Bobby sighed again as for the first time in his life as a hunter, he didn't fix a shot of holy water into the drinks he was getting ready for his guests since one was out for the count and the other one might have developed a serious allergy. 

 

He desperately wanted to ask Sam what had happened and how he came to have Dean with him since he had pretty much worried all his remaining hair grey since Dean had been blinked away.  But one look at the way the boy had his head bowed against the door jamb and refused to even so much as look up to avoid locking eyes with him told him everything he needed to know. If the last seal was really broken and the sacrifice Sam had made out of himself hadn't helped to prevent it, there was some serious shit about to be hitting the fan and he didn't really know how to face that one. Springing all those demons out of the hell-gate had been pretty shitty and pitched them right on top of the list of do-not-mingle-with in hunter society. But springing the big boss out of the pen, now that was something completely different. Especially since they had absolutely no clue as to what Lucifer would be hitting them with. When Dean began to stir slightly on the couch, he walked over and perched on the coffee table to wait for the young man to finally get back to them. 

 

Jensen floated into awareness slowly but steadily until his mind reached the inner limits of his skull with a tremendous bang. He decided to forgo opening his eyes for a moment and just sit it out until he was fully there. He couldn't very well remember what happened, he was standing there and Jared... and one second later, there was... and his whole body was achy and sore like he ran a marathon and he was lying on a squishy, flat surface that felt suspiciously like one of the set's couches, so he must have taken a serious hit and passed out. He could only hope that they wouldn't insist on getting him into a hospital, though Jared would probably vote for it. But he was going to be fine, really, even his headache was receding to a somewhat dull throb he's dealt with more often than not. 

 

When he finally opened his eyes, everything stopped for a fraction of a second and then was set into sharp relief. The first thing he saw was the stark contrast of the black paint forming the Key of Solomon on the ceiling, which meant that he was lying on Bobby's couch playing Sleeping Beauty for god knows how long. He let his head fall to the side and was met with Jim's concerned gaze and an uncharacteristic frown from the older man. 

 

“Hey there, you back with us already?”

 

Jensen settled for a cautious nod and looked around the room quickly, taking in the assorted chaos of books and clutter and Jared huddling his big frame into the wall by the door as if he wanted to melt into it, which was totally impossible, by the way, been there, tried that.

 

Something was definitely off here, but he couldn't really put his finger on it. Jensen sat up slowly and dabbed his hand at his tender head. Something really wasn't right about this, why wasn't Jared bouncing around him like mad, berating him for whatever stupid thing it was that got him there in the first place. 

 

“Yeah, I'm... I must've really been out of it for a while there,” and this instant, something occurred to him, “where the hell is everyone? And what happened?”

 

He saw Jared wince and wondered what the hell happened while he was out like a light. 

“You don't remember? What, with the end of the world and all?”

 

Jensen watched Jim as he shot a reprimanding glance at Jared and that was the moment when Jensen noticed the rigid stance and squared shoulders paired of with a wary frown and mistrust in his eyes. Jared was not only in costume, he stayed in character with no camera anywhere in sight and if this isn't the weirdest feeling Jensen ever had, he was going to...

 

“Dude, lay off the  Winchester attitude for a moment. I just got whacked over the head, ok, and there's no cam running anywhere right now.”

 

The other man darted forward from the wall and for the first time, Jensen got a good look with all the shadows playing over his face. He looked, blinked, and caught a gasp in his throat.

 

“Oh my God, you ARE Sam Winchester, right? Fuck, this... does that mean the world is really ending?? And I'm... HA... that's... not.. funny..”

 

He felt a wave of panic sweep over him and propped his hands up on his knees while he tried to get his breathing under control. This was it, he was officially certifiable and there was no camera rolling anywhere. 

 

Sam looked at the man that was supposed to be his brother with wide eyes. He was talking like he didn’t know where he was and what he had been doing and now… he looked like he was having – a panic attack. Bobby had risen halfway from the table but he seemed unable to do anything but hover there his hand inches from Dean’s shoulder. 

 

No – Sam narrowed his eyes as his confusion made way to an epiphany – not Dean. He’d lived and breathed his brother for all his life, knew his essence inside and out and this… this was not him. Rage reared up inside Sam at the nerve this creature had, letting itself in like that and claiming to be wholly clueless about it. The thought of what might have happened to his brother now that he realized he was not here sprung Sam into action. 

 

The power flooded through his veins without much resistance, coiling in his hand, ready to latch onto the darkness inside Dean’s body, ready to flush out that wretched demon. The man in front of him reacted instantly and more violently than any possessed human in his presence ever had. His back arched as if something had punched him straight into the middle of his spine and Sam saw him tense all over. He prepared the hooks sinking into the essence of the very being and  _ tugged.  _

 

Jensen felt like he was floating in his own head and with a dream-like clarity he watched helplessly as Sam Winchester tried to exorcise him with the power of his mind –  _ out of his own fucking body  _ – well, not really  _ his _ _ , _ that much he had gathered already, but…it felt, odd. 

 

He had always wondered what the guest actors imagined that found themselves on the wrong end of Sam’s palm of doom, but nothing he would have come up with felt quite like this. There was no pain, not in the physical sense at least, but the strange sensation of powerful arms wrapping all around his body and enveloping his limbs. That changed fast when, instead of hands grabbing him in the end, the arms turned out to be pointy claws –  _ hooks – _ that slid into his very being, not hurting but intruding, making him aware of  _ Sam  _ in a way he was altogether not comfortable with and slithering through his mind right down to a sensory memory he didn’t have –  _ couldn’t have, wasn’t me, wasn’t ME –  _ but still no rational thought passed by that flood of panic it incited. 

 

Until he felt the sensation go downward that is, when the one thing broke through –  _ he’s going to burn me to a crisp; he’s going to send me to Hell, fucking HELL, that’s fucking real around here! –  _ and he felt that it would be called for to put a stop on that  _ right the fuck now. _

 

Jensen didn’t know what he was doing and what he wanted to achieve with it, but he sent feeling back into his fingers that felt like pulling off a glove and willed his feet to stand their ground back under his control. And when he was aware of the outer limits of his body again, he pushed it to move with determination and snapped his head up to look Sam square in the eyes. What he saw there made him almost flail and lose his footing – black bubbled in Sam’s eyes, ready to swallow the familiar hazel whole, but not quite there, as if there was an internal war, a tug-of-war on his side. They had never filmed anything remotely like this and he actually had no idea how to break Sam’s hold over a victim, but he figured that making him lose his focus was as good a shot as anything else. 

 

Jensen forced his feet forward a step and then another one, never leaving Sam’s widening eyes, as no one had ever defied him quite like this but the very high rankinig demons, of course. A glint of uncertainty appeared in his eyes that immediately cleared and Jensen saw his opening and only chance. He made a run for it and threw Sam’s arm to the side with a backhanded blow and proceeded to hit him straight on his face. The bigger man lost his balance and crumbled like a felled tree, power lost instantly, wide eyes staring up at Jensen with fear laced so deep inside that no one else would have picked it up. No one, but the one person that actually knew his character just as well as his own. Jensen decided to go with the flow and drew on his best Dean-voice. 

 

“I swear if you ever, EVER, try that on me again, I’ll fucking kick your ass into next week, understood?”

 

Sam still blinked owlishly at him, looking for all the world more like a scared child than the general of the demon army. 

 

“Dean… I…”

 

On a hunch, Jensen dropped down to his knees in front of Sam’s splayed form and gathered the young man into a crushing hug. His mumbled ‘been wanting to do this for the whole fucking season…’ went almost inaudibly past his lips, but he refused to let the other out of his grip a moment before it actually would become really awkward. When he pulled back, he clasped one hand behind Sam’s neck and caught his eyes once more.

 

“It’s not your fault, ok?”

 

Sam shook his head rapidly: “But…”

 

Jensen raised his finger to shut him up. “It isn’t, okay, trust me on this one.”

 

Then he glanced over his shoulder at Bobby, who had followed the whole spectacle with a stunned gaping looking and turned back to Sam. He helped him stand up and put his thumbs into the pockets of his worn jeans. 

 

“So…,”Jensen said, “now that we asserted our manliness again and all; can we go back to that thing of me not exactly being your brother?”

 

 Sam was stunned speechless. Not only had this man single-handedly broken his psychic hold – with no sign of a demon emerging underneath – he had also treated him like Dean would, only he wouldn’t. And now he stood here saying that he wasn’t exactly his brother. The whole thing confounded Sam to no end and he really didn’t know what to say, so he went for the dumb, but obvious. 

 

“Dean, are you… possessed?”

 

The other looked at him for a moment like he wanted to laugh, but then turned serious in a matter of seconds. 

 

“Insert a joke about angels and devils here that I’m not going to make because I’m not suicidal, but even if I don’t actually know what the hell happened here, I think it’s safe to say that I’m not, in fact, possessed. But I’m not Dean Winchester, I’m Jensen Ackles.”

 

Sam had never heard that name and the other man looked at him as if it would have surprised him if he had. He let his eyes wander between him and Bobby and sighed after a moment.

 

“Look, guys, I know I should be the one freaking out here, since I apparently landed my ass in my own frickin’ TV-show, but I guess with the overall situation you have a lot on your mind. However, as much as I like playing Dean Winchester, I would prefer being out of here and in front of a camera again before the shit hits the fan.”

 

Sam couldn’t help it, the confusion was bubbling madly inside his mind along with that familiar rage that had been burning his veins for such a long time. “I..you, what?”

 

The man that claimed to be Jensen and wasn’t Dean in a way drew his hand over his eyes in an obvious attempt to order his thoughts that came out a bit scattered.

 

“Look, there was this guy who wrote a concept for a show, a thing about two brothers driving all over America, going up against ghosts for a living, saving people, hunting things – the family business.”

 

Sam started at those familiar words from years – aeons – ago, delivered to him in Dean’s voice just like that, but the guy went on without pausing to check on his floundering.

 

“The show interested some people since it was about the supernatural, a mystery-slash-road trip kinda gig. So they set out to find two guys to play the brothers and they found me and Jared. And we have been Sam and Dean Winchester ever since. And somehow I got sucked into here and you guys probably know way more about inter-universe travels than I do, so I would kind of appreciate it if we could get me back to where I belong before this whole she-bang here starts. Uhm…”

 

Sam looked at the other man incredulously. He couldn’t really be serious about what he was saying – but then again, it wasn’t the first time they had ever encountered distortions of reality. But still, a show about him and his brother and actor that took on their lives for the screen? That was just…

 

“I don’t believe you, I mean that sounds like shit someone… something would make up, just to get close to us, you tell me what’s really going on right the fuck now.”

 

Sam stepped forward carelessly and grabbed the man’s wrist in an iron grip; and just as he was about to drag the other one with him, he felt a pulse spark over into his own hand, travelling up his arm and boom into his mind. He felt the skin under his expand with the flush of blood and life, a strong beat drumming through his senses and suddenly he was slipping…

 

Jensen was rooted to the spot, much the same way he had some minutes early under the influence of Sam’s freakish powers, but it was different now. Nothing was tugging at him, on the contrary, there was an eerie whiteness creeping into his mind and he found himself remembering stuff, his life, the recent years, working, acting, laughing, Jared… until it all slowly begun to slip away into nothingness and suddenly his head felt blown empty and there was something wrong and he could suddenly see through his eyes, see Sam’s eyes rolled back in his head, showing only white and that was bad, it was…

This time it was Sam himself who broke the hold and the tall man stumbled back, shaking his head as if to chase away the remnants of images in his head. He heaved a deep breath and clawed at his chest in a futile attempt to slow down his hurried breath. Jensen blinked owlishly for a moment, unclear as to what just happened, but with a suspicion worming into his thoughts, when Sam straightened suddenly and turned tail to leave the house in a near run. 

 

Jensen turned to Bobby a bit helplessly, but the veteran hunter just shrugged in a way that conveyed ‘nothing surprising, just Winchesters’ and let his shoulders sag a bit. 

 

“I’m going to hit the books… maybe I can find something about what-you-call it? Inter-universe travels. And by the way, your story sounds so crazy, it just might be true.”

 

Jensen regarded the older man with fond appreciation, Jim Beaver was as much a part of the show as Bobby was for the Winchesters and he was glad to have an ally in him either way.

 

“I’ll better go after him to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

 

Bobby nodded and threw him a tight-lipped smile. “You better, boy, he’s prone to, nowadays.”

 

Jensen felt the old hunter’s eyes on his back as he made his way to the door. He also felt the questions burning behind the sharp gaze, but choose to do it the  Winchester way and deny his knowledge for now. He had grave matters to attend, after all, making sure that Sam didn’t try anything like the dumb shit he’d been attempting lately.

 

Sam let his legs carry him down the steps and into the junkyard by the sheer force of his mass and the burden that weighed down his shoulders. He ended up on his knees quite near the place he had left Bobby unconscious not too long ago. His mind was awash with sensations and memories that didn’t belong to him and while he had never known his powers to go in that direction, he knew very well who they belonged to and what they meant. 

 

They meant life and stability and safety for someone who looked like Dean and for him, too – that could be him and Dean living in world with no suffering, no demon blood, no pain and no saving the world or condemning it. He’d been shown what it could be like if they’d just been someone else, not special, not chosen, not fractured to the very core. And once again his gift, his curse, his damnation had shown him a mocking picture of normalcy, put it within his reach and burnt it to ashes that tasted vile in his mouth. 

 

His hand dug down into the gravely earth in wild despair while his heart raced and lines of black poison crawled up his veins, burning him from within. Sobs wracked his strong shoulders, but no tear left his eye, no sound escaped his lips. His pulse rushed loudly in his ears and he felt it thump down, down, down into the soil, shattering the earth into cracked pieces. His whole being shook violently with exertion, but he couldn’t yield, couldn’t stop – until a strong hand grabbed his shoulder and dragged him back against a hard chest, warm and comforting in their familiarity. 

 

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

 

The words rushed through the thumps and everything else ceased for a moment, just that one voice reverberating in his mind, sounding like brother, hate, family, monster, love, Dean… and everything fell away. 

 

Jensen barely managed to stay upright under Sam’s weight when he dragged him up to get him into the house – the tall man was clearly unresponsive, but at least standing on his own two feet, albeit unsteadily. He called out to Bobby and heard the thump of a big book slamming shut and hasty footsteps until the grizzled hunter appeared on the veranda, falling into step at Sam’s side immediately. Together, they managed to drag him over to the couch and lay him down among all the precious tomes. Both of them settled in with some ‘light’ reading while Sam slept fitfully between them. 

 

They had some late lunch after a couple of hours and went back to research before Sam woke up a bit disoriented and closed off like a log. He wouldn’t talk about what had happened and instead stalked off into the bathroom without another word. When he came back, he picked up one of the books indecisively and finally looked up to find all eyes directed towards him. 

 

“We should find a way to call the angels instead and see if they’re behind this shenanigan and have them clear it up.”

 

Jensen immediately shook his head forcefully. 

 

“I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t want any of these guys taking me apart for inspection. And, of course, you don’t know it, but I can’t even be sure that Cas didn’t puff out of existence after his run-in with a certain  Archangel , so I don’t know if he can even answer in case we call HIM. No, I think we have to dig this one up ourselves.”

 

He regarded Sam’s cold and hard expression that clearly showed the other man would want to know more about what exactly he didn’t know, but he seemed to accept Jensen’s reasoning about the angels for now. Instead of sitting down with them in the living room, he turned on his heel and strode out, thundering steps on the stairs. Jensen sighed and shook his head lightly, but didn’t follow this time. The other man clearly needed space and after a furtive glance to Bobby, he focused again on the musty old tome in his lap that was nearly indecipherable. 

 

Sam flopped down on the guest bed that had been his place to sleep for countless times and stared at the open book, unseeing. A lot of thoughts and feelings warred inside him, but he couldn’t let any of them come out too far. He focused on nothing for a few moments until his thoughts turned back to Jensen. He didn’t loathe the man for his easy life or the way that his brother’s face slid on and off of him like it  was water. He sure as hell wouldn’t wish his own existence on anyone, but recent events added up in a way that he really didn’t need - in both the bad and good ways, actually, which wasn’t easy to accept. He heard Jensen call up to him from the bottom of the stairs, but chose to ignore it, focusing on the book on his lap for the first time. Suddenly, a feeling in the pit of his stomach had him whirl around, heedless of the fluttering pages on the floor and he wrenched the door open just in time…

 

Jensen called up for Sam, to coax the man down at least for dinner, but he got no answer, so he decided to go up and drag the other man out of the room, if he wanted to or not. He ascended the stairs, eyes down to mind his steps, when a weird feeling fluttered by his cheek, accompanied by a disconcerting noise. 

 

He looked up and his gaze was instantly drawn to the shadowed figure at the top of the staircase. He didn’t need him to step out into the light to know who it was, but when he did, Jensen felt unmistakeable dread settle low in his stomach for the first time since he had been thrown into this wrecked situation. 

 

He stood in front of a heavenly being and he had no idea what this meeting would bring for him, but he feared that there was no way back. The physical body of the angel was glowing softly, making him transparent, and while there were no instantly visible physical wounds, his existence seemed – thin, like too many layers had been rubbed off. Jensen didn’t dare meet his eyes headlong, afraid of what he might find there. Instead, he tried to swallow around the lump in his throat. His voice came out strained and thin, more of a hope than conviction.

 

“I’m going home, aren’t I?”

 

Castiel regarded him with blank and cold eyes for another moment before taking another step down the stairs and lifting his arm, fingers outstretched so they barely touched Jensen’s temple. 

 

Sam ran towards the blinding white light in the vague direction of the stairs and he arrived just in time to thunder down two steps to catch his brother before he could fall down the stairs when his legs buckled underneath him. And he had not a single grain of doubt in his mind that this was  _ his brother  _ when he held Dean as close as he could before the other man was bound to regain his senses and shove him off. 

 

After a moment, he felt the man in his arms stir slightly and heard a mumbled ‘Sam’ waiting for the push to come any second now. 

 

“Sam, don’t let go.”

 

 

THE END


End file.
